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The title says "Banned" which implies you are not allowed to read the book. What it actually means is "Banned from curriculum", meaning teachers shouldn't use i

The title says "Banned" which implies you are not allowed to read the book. What it actually means is "Banned from curriculum", meaning teachers shouldn't use it in the classroom. The latter seems far less controversial to me. You can still read the book. You just can't be required to read it. I don't care about the racist "incident" they're flaming up with some dumb kid. If educational leaders think To Kill a Mockingbird is a poor, white dominant perspective that does not realistically portray black perspectives, then by all means, let's stop teaching it, and teach a more relevant book instead. I liked that book. I read it in school and found it enjoyable and an interesting intro to racial issues beyond "Slavery is bad". But it definitely makes things all about white people. There's likely some much better source material out there for that conversation. Saying you're banning a book is a lot dumber than changing your required curriculum.

ppf 6y ago
>meaning teachers shouldn't use it in the classroom They are banned from using it in the classroom. I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be? "It's not banned everywhere, just here" is justifying the silencing of free speech in a way that Soviet Russia would be proud of.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  There are a ton of books that are inappropriate for use in the classroom. I can’t get too excited about that.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    And no one is complaining about the Kama Sutra being banned from the classroom. But why is To Kill A Mockingbird inappropriate for use in the classroom?
    - klmadfejno 6y ago
      They're not saying it's "inappropriate" as in bad for children. They're saying it's not a good way to teach racial history. To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the situation as a white people problem, with the blacks as passive victims requiring good, white actors to save them. There's no doubt, To Kill a Mockingbird is written to antagonize racism. But some are arguing the means by which it accomplishes this are not representative of where we'd want to be; echoing the generally vast liberal/conservative argument whereby most conservatives are not racist, in that they do not believe minorities are intrinsically worse or less deserving than whites, but they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand. The harsh gut reaction to someone saying "this is no longer good" will bring out an angry response in many because they don't think it's bad and they know they're not racist AND they are not in fact racist. But there's additional levels of depth here and asking for change is a good thing, though it falls flat to anyone not interested or aware of the depth.
      - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the situation as a white people problem, with the blacks as passive victims requiring good, white actors to save them. No it doesn't. It portrays a trial from the perspective of a lawyer's daughter. The fact that it's portrayed from a white person's point of view doesn't somehow invalidate the story unless you're just anti-white. they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand. You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There are plenty of educated people who disagree with you. To ban this book is to further narrow the field of political opinions acceptable to the liberal educational elites.
        joshuamorton 6y ago
        You don't actually address the claim gp made. The point of view isn't directly relevant to the story being told. Certainly it helps, but one could imagine a story told from the daughters point of view where the black characters were more active. That's the criticism GP is leveling, and it's nuanced and well informed, and as far as I can tell you didn't actually understand it fully. Lashing out at them as ignorant when you failed to grasp the point they were making is really rude. There book might fit in a curriculum where you look at the representation of black people in media over time, say how they go bad or caricature to sort of flat and irrelevant to ultimately complex and human, but that's probably a college level course, if only because it would require devoting 3-4 books to the same subtopic.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  > I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be? Probably received just fine. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't read this book. They're saying its a misleading depiction of racial history, and therefore is a bad teaching tool.
jjk166 6y ago
If it were a simple case of "here's a better option" there would be no need to ban it. If it were a perfect substitute, then teachers would just switch over to the other option, and if not then there's no reason that a class can't read two books dealing with racism. No, you don't ban a book to encourage the reading of another, you ban a book to suppress it.

ppf 6y ago

>meaning teachers shouldn't use it in the classroom They are banned from using it in the classroom. I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be? "It's not banned everywhere, just here" is justifying the silencing of free speech in a way that Soviet Russia would be proud of.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
There are a ton of books that are inappropriate for use in the classroom. I can’t get too excited about that.
- jjk166 6y ago
  And no one is complaining about the Kama Sutra being banned from the classroom. But why is To Kill A Mockingbird inappropriate for use in the classroom?
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    They're not saying it's "inappropriate" as in bad for children. They're saying it's not a good way to teach racial history. To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the situation as a white people problem, with the blacks as passive victims requiring good, white actors to save them. There's no doubt, To Kill a Mockingbird is written to antagonize racism. But some are arguing the means by which it accomplishes this are not representative of where we'd want to be; echoing the generally vast liberal/conservative argument whereby most conservatives are not racist, in that they do not believe minorities are intrinsically worse or less deserving than whites, but they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand. The harsh gut reaction to someone saying "this is no longer good" will bring out an angry response in many because they don't think it's bad and they know they're not racist AND they are not in fact racist. But there's additional levels of depth here and asking for change is a good thing, though it falls flat to anyone not interested or aware of the depth.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the situation as a white people problem, with the blacks as passive victims requiring good, white actors to save them. No it doesn't. It portrays a trial from the perspective of a lawyer's daughter. The fact that it's portrayed from a white person's point of view doesn't somehow invalidate the story unless you're just anti-white. they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand. You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There are plenty of educated people who disagree with you. To ban this book is to further narrow the field of political opinions acceptable to the liberal educational elites.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        You don't actually address the claim gp made. The point of view isn't directly relevant to the story being told. Certainly it helps, but one could imagine a story told from the daughters point of view where the black characters were more active. That's the criticism GP is leveling, and it's nuanced and well informed, and as far as I can tell you didn't actually understand it fully. Lashing out at them as ignorant when you failed to grasp the point they were making is really rude. There book might fit in a curriculum where you look at the representation of black people in media over time, say how they go bad or caricature to sort of flat and irrelevant to ultimately complex and human, but that's probably a college level course, if only because it would require devoting 3-4 books to the same subtopic.
klmadfejno 6y ago
> I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be? Probably received just fine. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't read this book. They're saying its a misleading depiction of racial history, and therefore is a bad teaching tool.

jjk166 6y ago

If it were a simple case of "here's a better option" there would be no need to ban it. If it were a perfect substitute, then teachers would just switch over to the other option, and if not then there's no reason that a class can't read two books dealing with racism. No, you don't ban a book to encourage the reading of another, you ban a book to suppress it.